Monday, May 25, 2015

Pitch Perfect star Anna Kendrick stars alongside Ryan Reynolds in the bizarre crime thriller “The Voices” about a man in his 30’s suffering from schizophrenia who speaks to his pets, a dog and a cat which he regards as his conscience.

In “The Voices,” Jerry (Reynolds) is that chipper guy clocking the nine-to-five at a bathtub factory, with the offbeat charm of anyone who could use a few friends but one who needs his medication to function normally. With the help of his court-appointed psychiatrist (Jacki Weaver), he pursues his office crush Fiona (Gemma Arterton) and later his other officemate Lisa (Kendrick). When Fiona agreed to go out with him on a date and carelessly stood him up to go out with her other friends, Jerry’s odd behaviour begins to get the better of him. During the night when Fiona stood him up, he finds her on the road trying to get a ride going home, Jerry then offers her a ride while his hallucinations start to fill his mind until he realizes he has already slit open Fiona’s throat. Once at home, his dog Bosco tells him to confess to the police but on the other side, Mr. Whiskers says otherwise. Jerry then disposes Fiona’s body part by part until her detached head inside his fridge. A week after, Jerry decides to return to work and eventually goes out with Lisa who has long been interested in him but has no idea of Jerry’s psychotic tendencies.

“It was the script for that movie that totally blew me away at first,” enthuses Kendrick, “and then it was knowing that Marjane (Satrapi) was directing it. Ever since I saw Persepolis, I knew I had to work with her. It’s one of those movies that lives inside my mind and keeps popping up all the time. And then when I knew Ryan Reynolds was going to be playing the lead, I had to say yes. You see that’s how it happens to me. People always ask me why I do so many films, but I never set out with that in mind.”

Doing all three characters was a challenge, says Reynolds. “On set, we’d go through the scene. I would perform Mr. Whiskers and Bosco, and then I would also have to do Jerry. It was tough.” For Jerry, these voices represent the intersection of his fantasy and reality worlds, and his struggle to follow a righteous path. “It’s about a guy on a tightrope,” says Reynolds. “It’s about a guy who’s walking that very thin line between protagonist and antagonist."